The nervous wait to exchange....

  • Thread starter Thread starter noj
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Scotland is far better. You view the house and then make an offer (I think the offer has to be in writing). Once the offer has been accepted there are financial penalties if either party tries to pull out (buyer could be libel for the resell price if they pull out). It obliterates gazumping as well.


M.
 
m4cc45 said:
Scotland is far better. You view the house and then make an offer (I think the offer has to be in writing). Once the offer has been accepted there are financial penalties if either party tries to pull out (buyer could be libel for the resell price if they pull out). It obliterates gazumping as well.


M.
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seems like a much better system.

buyers can put quite a lot of money into searches/electrical checks/plumbing checks etc only for the seller to pull out
 
Agreed a price on mine this week, mortgage and searches all sorted on my new house. Fingers crossed i don't get messed around by the buyer.
 
About to transfer my deposit to the solicitors today.. Provided they provide me with the correct total. I am paying more than the 10% and they have only asked for 10% for some reason, so rather than sort two transfers from the branch (which are seemingly ALWAYS closed - HSBC) separately, I want to do it all in one go!
 
I think I'll be bald by the time all this is over. Everything just seems to take so long.

The mortgage company have been coming back with more and more questions with regards to pensions, pay statements and bills etc, surely they should have collated their queries and asked them all in one go? Each time they've come back they have wanted to alter the terms i.e. from 25yrs to 35yrs, then from 35yrs to 29yrs, then from 29yrs to 24yrs and 8 months!!!!! Each time we provided more details the application was resubmitted and had to be reprocessed!

This has caused a huge delay. The Mrs phoned them directly on Friday (when she asked our broker for the number he said that they would not speak to her directly, only him) anyway, he was wrong. They did speak with her and she opened a complaint. The mortgage company gave us £55 compensation (not earth shattering but it's an admission of their **** ups). She now wont let them close the complaint in the hope it keeps us insight. Things have finally started to move apart from today's hiccup!

We had the sign off for the mortgage yesterday, BUT for some reason they came back today wanting more info (about a garage we have been renting and its cost) .... my Mrs contacted them again and is now dealing with a senior manager who will accept correspondence directly from us on the proviso it gets certified by our broker. She also pestered for an evaluation date for the property we are buying and was promised a date soon. Que a phone call minutes later from the estate agent saying an evaluation will be taking place tomorrow!

We are working to a tight timeline. We are out of our rented house at the end of next month and the Mrs is 5 months pregnant!
 
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Looks like I'm going to be getting into the hassle of buying a new house soon! My missus moved in to my house last year with her cats and we've since got a dog so we'd like somewhere with a bit more space. With two of us paying the mortgage and a decent bit of equity in my place we have a few more options.

I've had my place valued and it came out as a pleasant surprise so we're going to start the process of getting it on the market. The problem is, we've already seen a house that would be great for us so we need to move fast. First time round it was easy for me as I was a first time buyer with no chain, I'm imagining this time it's going to be more of a pain!
 
I am 4 days in of writing checks for solicitors and evaluations and its nothing but a utter ballache. Sure they debited the account quick enough getting info out of themis disgusting. The entire process needs looking at and not by barristers or estate agents.
 
m4cc45 said:
Scotland is far better. You view the house and then make an offer (I think the offer has to be in writing). Once the offer has been accepted there are financial penalties if either party tries to pull out (buyer could be libel for the resell price if they pull out). It obliterates gazumping as well.


M.
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How does this work if you get for example an adverse survey result and find out the house would need £20k work doing to it? Surely the seller would be under no obligation to accept a price reduction but you'd be left with penalties if you pulled out because of it? Or would you get a survey before even making an offer?

Or what if searches/title investigation came back with something that the bank wouldn't agree to lend on and you need a mortgage? Up **** creek?

I have no idea how their system works.
 
I believe a survey is done as part of the offer making process, done before an agreement is made.
 
Zefan said:
They won't start searches until they have the contract..?! Surely the contract is likely to be subject to things that you find in the searches.
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After speaking to them it turns out the house plans are part of the contract and they can't do the searches until they have these...?


They've got until tuesday then I'm sorely tempted to change solicitors.
 
Teknobry said:
After speaking to them it turns out the house plans are part of the contract and they can't do the searches until they have these...?


They've got until tuesday then I'm sorely tempted to change solicitors.
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Mine said this also. They had to wait for stuff from sellers solicitor before they could do the searches.

Speak to them though, I was tempted to switch and even spoke so other conveyancer's but I ailed the conveyance director and things finally fell into place and they've been good for me now.
 
I've been in contact with both solicitors, each one seems to be blaming the other.
"we're awaiting confirmation from your solicitor that they are acting for you so we can send the documents"

"We replied and are awaiting documents"

I kicked off a bit today with my solicitors and the woman was very apologetic and said she'd ring the other ones directly and get it sorted.


Glad to hear though it's normal for them to wait for these documents before the searches, I was starting to worry!
 
It's in your (the buyer's) interests for your solicitor to wait to receive the contract pack before requesting searches, unless you would prefer to throw £2-300 pounds away on us requesting them only to find the seller has changed their mind or whatever early on.

The contract pack will include things like the property information form (which if the sellers has filled in at least shows they are planning to continue with the sale) as well as the official title plan which is needed to request searches and is paid for by the sellers.

Generally waiting for the pack isn't a delaying matter, only very occasionally as normally buyers are just as slow at providing ID, payment on account for the searches etc etc and it all lines up.

e: Also, regardless of whether or not there is a delay in requesting searches of a number of weeks, it's very very rare that waiting for results of searches is a thing to delay exchange/completion.
 
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Were at the searches stage now, contract signed and returned so waiting to hear back, thing the next step is agreeing a exchange and handover date, then insurance and sending the money. Its getting very exciting.
 
Well we completed Wednesday and picked up the keys late Weds afternoon. Since then, I have spent over 50 hours painting in 4 days!! Only 2 rooms left to paint now though, ready to move into on Friday :D
 
Well today is the planned day of completion.

Hopefully all goes to plan and can pick up keys this afternoon.

Then its 3 weeks to get it in shape before we need to be out of rental.
 
Skillmister said:
How does this work if you get for example an adverse survey result and find out the house would need £20k work doing to it? Surely the seller would be under no obligation to accept a price reduction but you'd be left with penalties if you pulled out because of it? Or would you get a survey before even making an offer?

Or what if searches/title investigation came back with something that the bank wouldn't agree to lend on and you need a mortgage? Up **** creek?

I have no idea how their system works.
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Sellers must provide a home report for buyers. These include a single survey (which gives the condition and value of the property), an energy report (which contains a house's energy efficiency rating and carbon dioxide emissions) and a property questionnaire (which includes general information such as a property's council tax band, factoring arrangements, the existence of any local authority notices and information about alterations that have been made).

It really makes sense. For example a house in the UK could have several people who are trying to buy it. They may all get to the point where they have a survey so the survey company (assuming they use one of the big ones) will probably have it on file and just re-print it. Hell they may even go out but do a really quick job as they've seen it before. In my eyes this is completely unfair so having the survey forced upon the seller makes sense.

They have it done once and can then give it out to numerous interested parties - it also speeds up the process massively.



M.
 
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